Do We Really Know Our God?

They're all finished their doctoral work, and they're writers, teachers, preachers. And so the Lord's been good to our family, too. And so all the credit goes to the Lord, nothing to the parents at all, other than the fact that God used us as an instrument. But at camp, I got to meet some of the families and see what God is doing.

And there were sons there, and I'm most impressed. I have nothing but I go back kind of like the Queen of Sheba. The half has not been told about this ministry. And so I'm impressed. Thank you for allowing me to stand in this pulpit. And I apologize to Bill Foote.

I am actually walking on your toes because I'm preaching the text that was printed in the bulletin as such or the order of service. When I spoke with Pastor Thomas, we talked about, I'm preaching from Luke 15. Can you believe it? Verses 11 through the end of the chapter.

So we'll leave something for Bill if he's working in that text this evening. But as we get started, I heard an illustration several years ago that Stephen Davy used, and I've since looked it up and followed it. Have you ever been completely misunderstood? Okay? Here's an illustration. Like the man who knew his wife's birthday was coming up soon.

So he asked her, without trying to appear obvious, Honey, if you could have one wish, what would you want? She thought for a moment, then laughed and said, I'd like to be eight again. And he thought, that's perfect. That's exactly what I'm going to plan to do. So on the morning of her birthday, he woke her up and off they went to IHOP for breakfast.

After a huge waffle with strawberries and whipped cream, they drove off to a nearby theme park. And what a day it was. He put her on every ride in the park. The death slide, the cyclone whip, the screaming loop, the wall of fear, the double-ring Ferris wheel. Five hours later, she staggered out of the theme park with her husband.

Her head was reeling, her stomach was churning, it was upset, and then he took her off to McDonald's. There they went, and he ordered her a big mac, large fries, thick chocolate milkshake. Then he took her to the latest Disney animated movie where they had popcorn, Pepsis, bag of MMs, topping off the day full of fabulous eight-year-old adventures.

Exhausted, she stumbled into the house late that evening with her husband, collapsed on the bed. He leaned over her and softly whispered, Well, honey, you got your wish. How did you like being ate again? She opened one eye in surprise and she moaned, I meant my dress size.

It's one thing to think we heard what our wife said. It's totally another to actually understood. When we come to Luke chapter 15, we're going to be introduced to one of the, and probably one of the most famous parables. It's called the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15.

15. We're going to look at that. But Luke chapter 15 as a whole reveals to you and to me even about the religious leaders of his day that they completely misunderstood the mission of Jesus Christ. It had been that way for some time. If you go back and understand the Gospel of Luke, it's very fascinating.

The Gospel of Luke begins with the birth lineage of Jesus Christ, demonstrating that he does fulfill the Davidic covenant, and because of his descendants, etc., you have that lineage. And then you see Dr. Luke, the medical doctor, is going to record the facts. It would fascinate him to record the facts of the birth of Jesus, a virgin birth.

That would attract the attention of a medical doctor. And he records it, and then he records an episode of the early life of Christ. It's the only one we have. Around 12 years old, etc., and how he grew in wisdom, stature, etc. And then we get to the point where we see him being tempted, just like we read in Matthew 4, where the Spirit of God after his baptism leads him to the wilderness, where now for 40 days he, then during that time before he begins his public ministry.

And we're already in Luke chapter 4 now, which is the beginning of his public ministry. Then we have the episode with Peter, disciples, etc., in chapter 5. Chapter 5 is interesting. Chapter 5 talks about what Christ is doing, healing a bit on the Sabbath, etc. You have the episode in Luke chapter 5 where men bring to Jesus a man on a pallet.

He's, in a sense, a para or a quadriplegic. He can't walk. So they take apart the ceiling of the building in which Christ, a home where he is speaking, and right in the middle of the crowd, they lower him down. There happened to be some Pharisees there. It's the first time in the Gospel of Luke.

We see Pharisees in chapter 5, verse 17. And then we read about scribes, first time in Luke chapter 5, verse 21. And you go, well, pretty early in Christ's ministry already, they were curious about what he was doing. And they were because they came from all, it says, Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, to come to see this one who could heal, do miracles, etc.

What really irritated them is he would say to the man on that pallet, I saw your faith. Your sins are forgiven you. Hang on to that phrase for a moment. But here's what I want to point out. Luke chapter 5 and Luke chapter 6 is 18 months. I mean, we read where his ministry begins in chapter 4.

Luke's going to go and compact it pretty quickly because he just says this testimony, etc. We're 18 months into his ministry by the time we get to chapter 4. 6. Okay? During that time, Jesus has been public. Going out, disciples will follow him, people will come. But what is interesting then is go with me to Luke chapter 5 for just a moment.

Chapter 6, actually, let's go there. And you'll read in Luke chapter 6 as you look there, and look with me in Luke chapter 6 for a moment, and you're going to get down to about verse, well, I talked about the episode. Then you see in chapter 6 that on the Sabbath they were going through the grain field, etc.

Look at chapter 6, verse 11. But they themselves, and he's talking now about the Pharisees, were filled with senseless rage and began discussing together what they might do to Jesus. Okay? And next verse. Now it is at this time that he went off to the mountain to pray and spent the whole night in prayer with God.

Comes down from the mountain, and at the halfway point of his ministry, halfway of the three and a half years, he now calls 12 men to be his apostles. The word is shaliah, okay, Aramaic term. And it means official representatives. They're not just messengers. They're going to be, the Sanhedrin had a spokesperson called the Shaliah.

Today we would call that Secretary of State, goes out and speaks for the nation. Okay, these 12 men, the Shaliah, now are going, and here's what's going on. It says in verse 11 that the religious leaders were filled with rage, senseless rage. I would put it this way.

They're out of their minds, they hate him. Matthew and Mark use different words of this very same verse. Matthew says they now started to plot in Matthew 12, 14, how they might destroy him. Mark, in Mark chapter 3, verse 6, again at the halfway point, Mark says, how they might put him to death.

Does it make sense? They hate him. He will feed 5,000 people at one time. That's not people. Men, it says. The crowd probably was 12,000. When you think the average village was somewhere between 50 and 200 people, do you get the picture of how popular he was? He was the biggest celebrity at that time in the country.

They came all the way from Jerusalem. They came from the north. They came from the east and west. They would spend days sitting there listening to him. There was nothing like him and the religious leaders. Hated him. Why? Out of envy. He was drawing attention. And as a result of this, Jesus now is going to invest his life into those 12 men.

It's becoming more dangerous to speak publicly with the large crowds. Does that make sense? And so at this point, then, he uses a new technique. He starts to speak and teach deep truths in what we call parables. And so now the parables really start coming from the teaching ministry of Jesus Christ.

His teaching by means of parables intensifies to take deep, deep truths. And the religious leaders, scribes, Pharisees, Herodians, okay, Sadducees, as they listen to him, he's fulfilling the prophecy. With ears to hear, they don't hear. With eyes to see, they don't see. These people are blind, they are deaf to truth.

And so what he is doing now, he is couching deep truths, and then to his 12 and others, his disciples, he will explain the meaning. In a few cases, he explains the meaning, and it sends the religious leaders over the top. Luke 15 is one of those. They completely.

Misunderstood his ministry. Notice Luke chapter 14, 15. And so it says at the end of chapter 14, the one who has ears to hear, let him hear. And last week you then heard, now all the tax collectors, sinners were coming near to Jesus to listen to him. And the Pharisees and scribes began to complain.

What's he doing with those outcasts from society? Okay. And you heard last week it was preached by Matt as he's taking you through these parables. These are the outcasts. And that is Luke chapter 15, beginning in verse 11. My Bible, it says here, and I'm using a legacy, a new American standard on it, and it says the prodigal son.

That's probably a mistitle, but really the title prodigal son does speak of us. Remember, a parable is simply a metaphor. Actually, it is similar. It's a simple metaphor. It's a simile, meaning a metaphor or simile like this, similar to this, okay, in story form. And it really is about a comparison.

When we say similar, simile, a comparison. This parable is rich in descriptive details. It's one of the only ones like that. But the thing that's Important, this is one of the only parables of this prodigal son that you really, really, really have to interpret in its context. By that I mean its historical context.

And we're going to look at it over the next 30 minutes or so in its historical context. Because the details provided to it really don't add layers of meaning. We're supposed to look at a central lesson. And the central lesson we're going to learn about, it is going to paint a beautiful picture of God's love toward us.

And we're going to learn from this one by the time we walk out of here this morning, my goal is that you know our God better. And then we do something about it. Okay? So as we look at this, this parable, we're going to take it into its cultural imagery.

Probably one of the scholars who's done the most work on this is a man who has a doctor of theology degree. His name is Kenneth Bailey. He's written several books. But Kenneth Bailey spent 40 years teaching at the University of Jerusalem. Also, it was the dean of the school, the Near Eastern School of Theology in Beirut, Lebanon.

Fluent in Hebrew, fluent in Arabic languages, understanding Completely the cultures, the historical culture, as an Old Testament scholar living there, teaching and preparing Jewish and Arabic men for the ministry. And he writes on this story like none others, in the book titled The Cross and the Prodigal, Luke 15, Through the Eyes of the Middle Eastern Peasants.

And so I'm going to draw some things from his work. But as we look at this, I want to point out three background truths, preliminary points, before we get going on this. Let me talk a little bit about the scribes and Pharisees as point one. They perceive Jesus' actions, what he has been doing now for over two years, as completely, and I'm going to use this word, completely outrageous.

It violates all their standards of thinking. When I use the word outrageous, if you look the term outrageous up in the dictionary, it means one, exceeds the limits of what is usual or non-conventional. Two, it's violent, unrestrained, as in outrageous behavior. Three, the definition says going beyond all standards of what is right or decent, an outrageous regard for another's rights, for instance.

Four, it means deficient in property or good taste. As in outrageous manners or outrageous language. And five, English definition of outrageous, grossly offensive to decency or morality, causing horror, greatly exceeding the boundaries of reason or moderation. So if I take all five of those components of the definition outrageous, those religious leaders, every aspect of outrageous, they would have applied to the ministry of Jesus.

Hanging around in eating with sinners. You don't fellowship with them, much less eat with them. You don't associate with them. You don't touch them. You don't talk with them. What respecting? Levi gets saved. Levi the tax collector, a publican, sold out to Rome. Actually, a traitor to the Jews.

Becomes Matthew the accountant. Becomes Matthew the apostle. Okay? Takes back a Jewish name, and that's who he is. Levi now. Now Matthew. That's the kind of people Jesus now made his Shaliah of. Good night. Even zealots, like Simon's zealot, okay? And so he's looking at these kind of men.

Outrageous. Now, the other parables you heard last week, all All of them have the term, rejoice with me. Rejoice with me. Jesus speaking it, he says, as he says about, as Matt preached last week, when it places the responsibility on the shoulders of the Pharisees, they lost the sheep.

The woman lost the coin. They didn't leave them. They lost them. You've lost them. You bear the responsibility. But the climax comes in verse 10. Rejoice with me rather than anger or outrage. Rejoice. You should be rejoicing. Now, what's Jesus talking about? And why did they think that this was so outrageous?

There is something, unless you work today around Oriental Asian people or Middle Eastern people, you and I in America do not understand something that permeates the culture of the people today. And it's been that way for thousands, three thousand years. It's called the shame slash honor paradigm. Shame and honor.

Okay? And that is the key to understanding the historical context and the literary context of this parable. When I talk about shame and honor, Jesus is going to talk about peasant life here in ancient Israel. That's the setting. Therefore, the setting in verses 3 through 10 reveals his mission.

And then in verse 10, do not misunderstand, he's going to explain. There is one thing that dominated every villager's life from the day they were born until they die, and that is shame and honor. We call it today in America saving faiths, not allowing yourself to be shamed, making sure people respect you.

And historians, biblical historians, say, unless you understand that, this parable just goes right over your head. Shame and honor. Shame and honor. And when these people heard Jesus tell this story, they would have been downright shocked at this parable, at how scandalous and outrageous this story is. It's an outrageous story.

And they would be thinking in their minds several things that we're going to bring out here in a few moments. Nobody would shame themselves like this dysfunctional family that Jesus is talking about. So let's begin. Look now with me in the text. We're going to see the depths of God's love in the details of this outrageous story.

Okay? And like the husband who misunderstood his wife about eight, being eight again, the religious leaders who should have known better completely misunderstood. Who Christ was and what he was doing here. Okay? I'm going to point out several things. Notice the outrageous features, the outrageous actions that take place in this story.

Number one, there is an outrageous verbal exchange in verse 12. I'll begin in verse 11. And Jesus said, and this is the capstone. Now he's told a parable: lost sheep, lost coin. A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of the estate that is coming to me.

And so he divided up his wealth between them. Focus on 12A for a moment. He says, Notice, Father, give me the share of the estate that is coming to me. Starts out a younger son saying something. The younger son says this. I want to ask three questions of what I just said here in this verse.

I'm going to ask three questions of that first part of verse 12. When does any son get an inheritance? When do you get an inheritance? Say it with me. After death. What's he implying? Dad, I wish you were dead. Or, do you understand what I'm saying? This is the equivalent of saying, then, Dad, Father, I wish you were dead.

Disrespectful. He wishes for this. The inheritance, normally, by the way, Is going to fall. If he has two sons, how do you divide it up? I have three sons. So if I was to leave an inheritance, I'm going to divide whatever I have into fourths. One more. The oldest son gets the what?

Double portion. So the oldest son should get what? Two-thirds. And he gives it to the sons. The younger son, by the way, is completely out of line. No son, especially the younger one, would ever murmur such a thing. He wouldn't even think it, much less say it. By the way, where is the oldest son in all of this?

We'll ask that question later. But what is the youngest son actually asking of his father? When I said, when does this? Let me read something, and I'm going to read. And I mentioned inheritance. The word that's normally translated as inheritance doesn't occur here. Let me read what Kenneth Bailey writes.

It's very important. The prodigal, he writes, and this is in his book on the prodigal and the cross, the prodigal demands privilege without, catch this next word, responsibility. He uses a long, wordy phrase. The direct request would have been, I want my inheritance. In Hebrew or Semitic languages, that's two words.

Two words in Hebrew. But rather, he says six words. Give me the share of the property that falls to me in either Hebrew or Arabic. Six words. Why the long circumlocution? The word inheritance is carefully avoided in what Jesus says. The word inheritance, clerinomia, is not used. Okay?

It is used 14 times in the New Testament, speaking of what you and I inherit in Christ. But Luke doesn't use it here. But here we have a rare word, the word usia, that is used in this story nowhere else occurs. It occurs in theology, but nowhere else in the New Testament.

It's the only place right here. Why? Because Middle Eastern culture gives us the reason. What do I mean? To accept one's inheritance involves acceptance of leadership responsibility in the family clan. The recipient is duty-bound to administer property, help solve family quarrels. He must defend the honor of the clan, of the family, against all comers.

He pledges... Himself to increase the clan's wealth and represent them nobly at village functions such as weddings, feasts, funeral. He must, quote, build the house of his father, end of quote. But this is specifically what the younger son does not want, does not ask for. He wants the usia.

I want the stuff. I want the money. I don't want the responsibility. I want none of that. I want the money. That's what he's asking. The word usia means wealth or property. It appears again in verse 13. Other translations use the word substance. Burgraff uses the word stuff.

His share was most likely property, which he's going to turn into cash. He did not want or ask for his inheritance. I don't want the inheritance. I want the stuff. The inheritance meant I have to take the place of my father and have those responsibilities. I want none of that.

Okay? What do the Pharisees expect the father to do? Okay. And by the way, let me say something here. The prodigal doesn't care how much others in the family or clan. You see, when you owned property like a farm, if I can use that term, farm, In this culture, you didn't build buildings on the farm.

Property, land to grow crops, to raise cattle, was at a premium in this time. Does that make sense? Instead, what they did is families and then relatives, we would all share the farm, as it were, and we would work in it. And sometimes these little villages then are almost all relations, the clan.

Does that make sense? The clan lives in like huts, buildings, whatever. And then you go out to work in the fields. You go out to where the sheep are, but we live together. And we might live in a campus like the campus this size, and it's our village.

And those are the villages Jesus would go through. Many of the family then are living there. All of them benefit from the property of the patriarch. This son wants a third of it of the clan's stuff. Meaning, I don't care about the rest of you, is the idea.

He didn't just care about dad, I wish you were dead. I don't care what the rest of you think or how you're going to suffer. I want mine. That's what he's asking. The Pharisees at this time, what would they think? Well, listen, I come from a traditional German family.

When we would get together for Christmas or whatever, if I was misbehaving, my uncles would do what? They're going to spank me. You get the picture? Okay. They're going to take over. If my dad wasn't around, hey, David, your family. Okay, get over here. Kind of an idea.

Okay? Now, I know that's not politically correct to say it that way, but I'm thinking that the people must have heard, would somebody simply slap this boy? That's probably what they're all thinking in that day because corporal punishment in schools years ago when I was in school, the nuns, I went to a school, they'd take that ruler and they'd just slap you across the hand or they would just take you, bend over, bam.

And then when you got home, dad would give it to you twice as much. Okay? That's kind of, that's been outlawed. Today we have things called child abuse. And I think those nuns, I hope they're getting, no, never mind, all right? So, now, the shame and honor, the Pharisees are thinking, what kind of a father would let himself be shamed and dishonored this way?

What does the father do? He divides it up. He divided it up. And so the people are looking at this and the listeners are thinking, I can tell you exactly what they're saying in their minds. You have got to be kidding. No self-respecting father would do this. No father would allow himself to be disrespected.

This is simply, what's the word that I use to describe it? This is simply outrageous. Completely outrageous. Somebody not only needs to straighten that son out, they need to straighten out what? The father as well. So as Jesus goes on, notice the outrageous excess in verse 13. It says, and not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together, went on a journey to a distant country, and there he squandered his estate in wild living.

I want to bring up four phrases in that one verse. Not many days after, not many days later, some commentators say that the reason the boy took off so fast was because he was so excited to begin his life of sin in a hurry to enjoy it. And I've read stuff in my commentaries on my shelves.

That's not the case. Bailey also tells us because of the boy's shame, the scorn of the family clan community, it's going to be so intense, so physically threatening, that he would rush to sell the stuff to get out of the town to village. The younger son gathered all.

The phrase, literally, in the original language, to gather means to liquidate. To get it together to sell, to turn everything into money. How do you gather, sell off? How do you get rid of an estate, one-third of a massive acreage estate? How do you do that in a few days?

The only way to do it is sell it for what? Pennies on a dollar. In other words, pawn it off. Get what you can as quickly as you can so you can get out of town as fast as you can, to trivialize it, to shame it, to take all the honor out of what the generations of families have passed this down to the patriarch, and you're going to take it and liquidate it almost overnight.

And you have to, because of what you're facing from the relatives in the clan. He is renouncing his heritage. He is renouncing his inheritance. I don't want the responsibility. He is renouncing his family. He's renouncing his name. And he goes to a far country. When you and I think of a far country, we think of something, we think of Canada, Peru.

He's going to head on out and he's going to go cross country. In Jesus' day, a far country meant to go to the Goy, the Goyim. It's the term for the Gentiles, Hebrew word. He's going to them. That's like going off into a far country. He's turning his back now on the Jewish heritage, the religion, the upbringing, and he wasted his substance with riotous living.

Diascorposin is the Greek word, and it means squandered. Literally, it means scattered. He's just, can I put it this way? He's just throwing money around right and left. It's just like casting seed. He's spending it. Hey, set it up. He squanders, lavishly spends until it's gone. Literally, he throws it away.

This boy is full of shame and dishonor. He disrespects everything. He shames his father. Biblical commandment: honor your father. Forget that one. Shames his community by leaving them and going to Gentiles, the goim, instead. Shames his religion by eating with pigs. Leviticus 11:17 says these were unclean animals.

Shames himself morally by partying with sinners. To this, the listeners, the Pharisees, even his own disciples are thinking, this would never happen. This is crazy. Nobody is this shameful. Jesus is painting for us the picture of the most shameful sinners imaginable. In their day, that would have been the publicans.

Nobody hangs them. With them. These were people who sold out their soul in their Jewishness. They sold it out to Rome. Turned their backs on their people. But Jesus is telling a story, really, of Adam and Eve, mankind, you and me. I want you to represent me. I'm making you in my image to subdue, to have dominion over.

You do God things for me, made in my image. That's your function, to be imagers. And I'm giving you the faculties, intellect, emotion, will, conscience, etc. And Adam and Eve, listening to Lucifer, like an angel of light, it says. The Nachosh. It means the one beautiful, the shining one.

It's also translated serpent. So as they listen to the nachosh, what they do is they turn their back on God. They sold out. Okay, in that sense. The outrageous existence, verses 14 through 16. What does he do? Verse 14. Now, when he had spent everything, everything. He lost everything.

Nothing is left of value. He experienced. What Hebrews 11, 25 says, the pleasures of sin for a season. The fun of sin runs out. The sin, the enjoyment, there comes a what? A payday. Notice what this implies. What this implies, when the hearers heard this, the listeners in Jesus' day immediately, immediately, when he sold it all, turned his back, wasted it, they're all thinking of something called the Kezaza ceremony, which still exists to this day.

K-E-Z-A-Z-A-H. Kezaza. Say it with me. Kezaza. The Kezaza ceremony is what they would do when one of the citizens' children turns their back on their Jewish heritage. You wasted it, and you wasted it on Goyim, the Gentiles. And what they would do is, if that son ever appeared again, they would beat him as he came to the village.

They would take sticks and slap him if they didn't just slap him on the face or her. They would banish. The father would think of him as what? Dead to me. If he ever came. Back, what they would do is they would make him sit outside the village gate until the father felt then ready to forgive him, the patriarch.

That happened to Absalom, by the way, when he turned and after he killed one of David's sons, his brother, he was away with his grandfather. He went to his grandfather, but when he came back, David wouldn't see him for two years. I don't want to look upon him.

And finally, one of David's generals and others encouraged him, you need to see your son. That's what's going to happen. That's called a Kezaza. They would do something when he was coming. They would take either grain in one of those clay pots, or they would take the oil, valuable, valuable olive oil, and they would break it in front of him.

That's the ceremony today, and it runs out. And it's like everything we have is valuable, our heritage, what you had, and now it's just wasted. That's the Kezaza. And since you wasted it, you are as dead to us. Okay? It's called Kezaza means cutting off. It's the Jewish cutting off.

Very humiliating. It's a public ceremony. And if a son had the nerve to come back, an official ceremony then, still practiced to this day, that's what he would have faced. Most humiliating thing, a young man, shame and honor. You're completely shamed because of how you dishonored all of us.

Notice what he did. His deplorable existence, attaches himself to a citizen of that country. He wasted everything. He scattered it. Nothing is left. And what he does now is he looked in this verse then. So he went and hired himself to one of the citizens of that country.

And that citizen, I can't get rid of this kid. And so he sends him out, go take care of my pigs. Talking about he knew who he was, Jewish. And so he clings in the term, when it says here in that verse, he went and hired himself, and he sent him into his fields.

He hired, the terms literally means he clung to, he pestered a citizen who devises a plan. Sends a Jewish boy, maybe this Jewish boy, will get the hint and go away. Absolute shame, now he's a beggar, verse 16. And he longed after. Have his fill of the carob pods that the pigs were eating.

So no one was giving him, remember the people that he lavished all this on, spread it to? They have no respect for him. They want nothing to do with him. They'll give him the most demeaning, shameful thing they can think of with the pigs. Verse 17 is one of the most interesting verses misinterpreted in this entire story.

It has done more theological harm than probably many verses that are misunderstood by Jesus. Let me show you the harm that this has done. Okay? Because it completely now sets what's going on in the entire chapter in order. Verse 17, it says, notice, but when he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father's hired laborers have more than enough bread?

But I am dying here from hunger. Verse 18, I will set out and go to my father and will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. We're going to look at this real quickly, but let's look at verse 17, where it says, notice this, what I call this outrageous, fourthly, this outrageous expiation.

But when he came to his senses, okay, this has been mistakenly viewed as repentance. That phrase, absolutely, listen to me, does not mean repentance. Does not mean repentance. Literally, Middle Eastern and Arabic languages translate it, he got smart. Or they use, he thought to himself. Or he took an interest.

And here's how it's translated. In Middle Eastern, he took an interest in himself. In other words, he developed a plan. The son comes and contrives. He now probably sobered up, desperate, he devises a plan. Track with me and write something in the margin of your Bible in a moment.

I will return and ask to be a skilled craftsman. In other words, I will return to my father and ask. It's an interesting word. It's not the word doulas. I'll offer to become a slave, but I'm going to ask to become a mythios, a trained craftsman. I'm going to earn enough money.

I'm going to earn enough money to do what? Pay my father back. This is the plan. This is the plan. Jesus spins a phrase here that every one of the Pharisees and others, remember, these are scribes, these are specialists in the Hebrew language. He uses the exact phrase that Pharaoh used after the locust plague in Exodus 10, verse 16.

I have sinned against the Lord. And it's the same words. Did Pharaoh mean that he had sinned and repent? No, because the Lord had hardened Pharaoh's heart. I'm going to work it out so that this stops and I can go back to everything. Are you tracking with me?

This at this point would have been an outrageous accusation. But that's what he's doing. He still doesn't understand that the issue isn't about a broken law or the lost money. It's about a broken relationship. That repentance and reconciliation is not part of his plan. This is what I would call earning my place back, working my salvation.

That's what he's thinking, his plan. I'm going to go and I'm going to do this. Jesus spun it. This is what Pharaoh was trying to do. Okay? Earn himself in good stead. All right. Notice the outrageous then, exoneration. At this point, everybody is thinking Kezaza ceremony. And here's how I said it would go.

The whole village is going to come out. Everybody but the father would come out. Okay, to the edge of the village if this son would come back. And at this point, if he does come back, and when he said, I will go back to my father, the entire crowd is thinking, and wait till he comes back.

Is his father going to show him something? His father's going to get his honor back. This boy's been shaming all of us and our clan, what he's been doing. He's going to get his just desserts. Wait till he comes and we break the oil and we pour out the grain.

The kid will finally realize what he has done. Okay? The whole village then is going to save face and restore their honor as this boy sits outside the gate before he could see his father. What a perfect opportunity for that, finally the dad to restore his honor. Honor.

But that's not what happens, is it? Notice in verse 20, it says, so he set out and came to his father, but when he was still a long way off, what happens? Notice, here is the crux of the matter. When he was still a far way off, his father saw him, felt compassion, and ran and embraced and kissed him.

Okay? That's not what happens. Notice what takes place, not the Kezaza. The listeners are shocked beyond absolutely belief. It's an absolutely outrageous exoneration. The listeners have, they can't even begin to fathom what Jesus is thinking here. The father sees him a great way off, but instead of shaming his son, what does he do?

He runs to him. It's absolutely outrageous. Why so? Because Middle Eastern men, patriarchs of his age, do not run. The father's been watching. He knows what will happen. He knows. Men of his age never run. He sees that son, and he, and the term run is literally racist.

He's going to beat the villagers before they get to the sun. Bailey explains that it's safe to assume that this man has not run anywhere for any purpose in almost 40 years. In fact, no villager ever, no man over 25 ever runs. And why not? In order for him to run, to race, the word race means I'm beating others.

Young men, the whole village coming to shame, I'm going to beat the crowd. He's going to race ahead. This week at the men's camp, I was explaining that people in this day wear something like a tunic. Okay, that goes down to the top of their shoes. If you're in the military, gird up your loins.

It means to take and tuck it up in the belt to get it above your knees. Why? So you can run. So that father's going to pull his legs up and all you get to see are hairy legs like this. Okay, no, so he pulls up his robe and he runs.

It is against Jewish custom to do that. The law, the Mishnah, and others said, you cannot do that. So much so, if you are a priest serving at the temple and you are doing animal sacrifices, and you read how they slayed hundreds of animals at those feasts, the blood ram, the blood ram.

Deep into those troughs. You're standing by that altar doing that. If that blood even gets on your robes, you are not allowed to pull up your robes. That's how strictly they took this. This father, let me read what Bailey says here in this culture in a moment. At this point, hearing that the father ran, these people are going, that is absolutely what?

Outrageous. Shameful. Completely outrageous. Bailey writes this. As the prodigal returned to the village, he expected his father to remain aloof in the house while he made his way through the village. As soon as they discovered that the money had been lost by the Gentiles, the Khazaza ceremony would now be enacted.

The son would then be obliged to sit for time outside the gate of the family home before being allowed to even see his father. And finally, he would be summoned. With the boy already rejected by the village, the father would be angry, and the boy would be obliged to repent, to apologize for everything as he pleaded for a job in the next village.

But that's not what happens, Bailey writes. The father acts in a very most countercultural manner. He breaks all the rules of Oriental patriarchy. Runs down the road to reconcile his son to himself. The word run, Dramon, is the technical term for the foot race in the stadium. It's used that way numerous times by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, 24, 9, 26, Galatians 2.2, 5, 7, 2 Thessalonians 3.1, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, let us run the race with endurance.

Luke tells us this, and he uses Luke as a well-educated writer recording exactly what was said. It says, the father saw him, had compassion, and Dramon raced. It's not just a slow shuffle or a fast walk. He runs as fast as he can. In the Middle East, a man of his age and position always walks in a slow, dignified fashion.

It's safe to assume he's not run anywhere for any purpose for over 40 years. No villager over the age of 25 would ever run, and now the father races down the road. He must do so to take the front edge of his robes in his hands like a teenager, so his legs would show.

Absolutely a humiliating posture. All of this is painfully, painfully shameful for him. The loiterers in the street will be distracted from tormenting the prodigal and instead will run after the father immediately. At seeing this respected village elder shaming himself so publicly. But it is his compassion that leads the father to race out to his son.

He knows what his son will face in the village. He takes upon himself the shame and the humiliation due to the prodigal. Bailey writes in this matchless story, we have a clear indication of at least part of what Christ is teaching. The best understanding of the text and the father in the text is to see that when the father leaves the house and takes upon himself a humiliating posture on the road, he becomes a symbol of God incarnate.

He does not wait for the prodigal to come to him, but rather at great cost goes down and out to find and resurrect the one who is lost and dead. These actions, seen in a Middle Eastern cultural context, clearly affirm one of the deepest levels of the meaning of the incarnation and the atonement.

Paul affirms the same truth with the great phrase in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself. In John's Gospel, Jesus says, I and the Father are one, the mystery of the fullness of God in The Son in his incarnation is beyond us. This parable, then, depicts a father who leaves the comfort and security of his home and humiliates himself before all the people of the village.

The coming down and going out to his son is the parable of the mission of what the incarnate Son of God does. The costly demonstration of unexpected love in the village street demonstrates the meaning of the cross. Are you tracking with me? This is God. This is Christ.

Left the glory to come and take upon himself. He runs to us and seeks us. Notice, let me finish how this works. The father took the shame. Look at the honor then he gives the son in verse 22. Let me read something first, though, in what is really important here.

As you read in verse 22, and the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Do you see this? What did the prodigal say I would do? I have a plan. I'm going to go and I'm going to tell my father.

I'm going to work until this is paid back. When he saw his father running to him, he was too stunned. It's not that the father cut him off. Let me read something from a commentary. He said, I'm no longer worthy. Stunned beyond belief, the prodigal changes his mind, does not finish his speech.

The offer to become a craftsman is deliberately set aside. He no longer presumes to offer any solution to his estrangement. Rather, overcome and overwhelmed, he can only put himself completely at the mercy and say, I am not worthy to be your son. At the beginning of this story, he insisted on unhampered control of his own life.

Now he leaves his destiny entirely in his father's hands. Words originally composed to manipulate are transformed into a speech now of genuine repentance. Traditional Western interpretation has said that the father interrupted the son and didn't give him a chance to finish his speech. No, no, no. Rather, faced with this incredible event, he's flooded with the awareness that his real sin is not the lost money, but the wounded heart.

The reality. The enormity of his sin and the resulting intensity of his father's suffering overwhelmed him. In a flash of awareness, he now knows there's nothing he can do to make up for what he has done. His proposed offer to work it off as a servant now seems absolutely blasphemous.

He's not interrupted by his dad. No. He now has changed his mind. He's been found. And in this manner, he fulfills the definition now of repentance that Jesus set forth. And when the father observes that the son has no bright ideas as how he can earn, how the son is going to solve the problem of his broken relationship, the father orders the party.

The father makes the reconciliation, as did the shepherd and the woman. Rejoice with me. My son who was lost is found. And he brings him to himself. This is our God. There's nothing we can do. Not a thing. He did it all. He condescended to come after us.

Amen? And as many as received him, to them God gives the authority, the power to become children of God. That's our God. On a cross. Hanging on a cross. The only person, Adam and Eve, humanity, you and me, we offended a holy God. And it would be God Himself who would come and pay our price.

He became sin, who knew no sin, that we might be the righteousness. He did it. You want to talk shame and honor? There's your shame and honor paradigm. And ultimately, when we stand in heaven, what are we going to do? Any crown we ever got, what are we going to do?

Revelation says we're going to take those and what? Throw them at his feet. We sit here today in 2026, as I said to the men of camp, 100 years from now, none of us will be here. 1,000 years, we won't be here. We'll be in glory. 10,000 years.

A million years. 3 billion years. 18 trillion years. 438 gazillion years. It's all what we do now with the decision. He did it all. That's your future. That's your future. He took. the shame and God says, put a robe, not a robe. No, he doesn't. The father says, put the robe.

That is the patriarchal robe of the father. Put it on him. Cloak him in my robe in righteousness. Put a ring, the ring of authority, the ring with all the rights and privileges. Put shoes. Slaves go barefoot. Sons wear shoes. He celebrates a banquet. I'm going to read off and then here.

Now his older brother was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing, summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things would be. And he said to him, Your brother, your brother's come home, and your father has slaughtered the fatted calf because he's received him back safe and sound.

But he became angry and was not willing to go in. And his father came out and pleaded with him, but he answered and said to his father, Look, for many years I've been serving you, and I've never, ever neglected a command of yours. And yet you never gave me a goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours, he doesn't call my brother, he says this son of yours, came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fatted calf for him. And he said, son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours, he says, your brother was dead and has begun to live and was lost and has been found.

That older son had outrageous excuses, the excuses of a self-righteous man. He asked his servant, What happened? What's going on? Why the noise as he comes in from the field? Your brother came home. My brother came home. What did he look like? Oh man, he was a mess.

So what happened? Your dad had him cleaned up, gave him the robe, killed a fatted calf. An unloving man is indicated by his attitude, anger. Why are you sitting with him, this son of yours? He despises his brother. The Pharisees, scribes despised these people Jesus was hanging with.

He won't welcome him into the family, this brother, he won't reconcile him. He's a fault-finding man. This son of yours who devoured everything with his riotous living, he flaunts that fact, you're living. And he dwells now on the past. And he accuses his brother of things he's not really sure.

Where did we ever read in the text that he was with prostitutes? His brother's just saying, look at how despicable he is. Okay. He's a stubborn man. He won't go in. Do you want to know more shame and honor? The father is supposed to sit on a high chair, higher than the crowd, at the banquet, like this.

Elevated like this in the house. Supposed to sit there. His oldest son is supposed to be the concierge, meaning introduce the guests, etc. That son shames his father by not coming in as the concierge. So what does dad do? You want to talk shame and honor? Or dishonor?

Shameful? He gets down and he goes and he walks, runs out to his other son. He leaves the crowd. Talk about dishonoring everything. He's going to the other son, too. Okay. Are you tracking with me? Not just the one, but he's telling the Pharisees, I not only loved your brother, what's he saying?

I came for you, too. There's some, but we never broke a commandment. Look what we're doing. Okay. Hmm. You want to know our God? God so loved the world, he did what? Gave his only begotten son. But when we were still sinners, what? Christ commended his love toward us.

Because the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is what? Eternal life in Christ Jesus. Is our God good or what? This is our God. This is the God we've been singing about this morning. This is the God who saved us. Amen. Father, thank you for our time in this passage of Scripture.

We have no other words other than to say, thank you, Lord. Thank you for loving us. And we'll never have words enough. May lives that we now live bring honor and glory and thanksgiving to you for what you have done for us. We love you, Lord, and that's the best we can say.

Thank you that even every day when we fail you, that if we confess our sins again, repent. You are faithful and just to forgive us. And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness because we are your children and we stand reconciled to you. Thank you for the promises in your word.

Thank you for this parable. Thank you. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for paying a price we could never pay. We pray this in your name and for Father, your glory. Amen.